The Back Room Weekly: "134.3" by Ian Harvey

The Back Room Weekly is a weekly essay featuring gems from our back room. This communication with JAYJAY patrons has been a vital way to promote the idea that the artworks we exhibit are each one of-a-kind-objects worth being singled out and discussed out of the context of an exhibit. All these artworks present a clear picture of JAYJAY’s mission that we continue to execute; exhibiting modern and contemporary work from museum track artists; scholars really, from this region and beyond.  

This week's piece: 134.3 by Ian Harvey 

Ian Harvey searches the margins of experience through his mixed media paintings. His work is comprised of abstract narratives chronicling his travels and places of residence, including Korea, Nebraska, Vermont, New York, and California. Harvey’s energetic style is solely about form, surface, and the extremes to which paint can be pushed. For Harvey, painting is the compulsion to reflect the conditions of his immediate existence.

134.3 is a large work on paper depicting California. The Golden State is one of the most diverse parts of the world with its endless beaches, varied mountainous regions, scorching wastelands, grand Redwood forests, and boundless agricultural plains that are dotted with an abundance of beautiful lakes and rivers. This painting resembles a topographic map, filled with contour lines following the terrain of Harvey’s man-made geometric shapes and his organic drips and pools of paint. The interactions between assorted mediums and their viscosity range in texture from thick to thin and matte to glossy. Glazes of luxurious, metallic enamel scintillate across the painting’s surface to achieve a deep perspective and an eye dazzling spectacle of bright colors, textures, and patterns.